Peter (also spelled Pyotr) Veniaminovich Svidler (Russian: Пётр Вениами́нович Сви́длер) was born in Leningrad, Russia and learned how to play chess when he was six years old. His first trainer was Vyacheslav Nikolaevich Styazhkin. Andrey Lukin has been his trainer since 1993.

Championships:

<Age>: Svidler tied for =1st at the 1992 U16 World Championship that was held in Duisburg Germany, but ultimately placed 2nd or 3rd on tiebreaker behind the winner Ronen Har-Zvi. Also in 1992, he tied for 1st with Ragim Gasimov in the last USSR Junior Open Chess Championship. He won the 1994 U-18 World Youth Chess Championship played in Szeged in Hungary.

Svidler's win at the World Cup 2011 qualified him for the World Cup (2013), where he defeated Anna Ushenina in the second set of rapid tiebreakers (ie: the 10+10) in the first round, Moldavan #1 GM Viktor Bologan in first tiebreaker of the second round and Azeri GM, former Candidate Teimour Radjabov in the third round and Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem in the Round of 16 (round 4). However, he lost to compatriot GM Dmitry Andreikin in the quarter final (round 5), exiting the contest. He scored 5.5/11 in the FIDE Grand Prix Tashkent (2012) to place =7th and earn his first 50 Grand Prix points. His 2nd GP event was at FIDE Grand Prix Thessaloniki (2013), but his =8th only earned him another 45 GP points, eliminating him from the race for the first two places. (1) However, once the Russian Federation won the bid to host the World Chess Championship Candidates (2014) in Khanty-Mansiysk, he was selected by the Organizer as its nominee to be the 8th Candidate in the event. There he scored 6.5/14 to place =6th (7th on tie break).

Qualifying by rating for the 2014-2015 Grand Prix series portion of the 2016 World Championship cycle, Svidler's first result was 6/11 placing him at 3rd-7th in the FIDE Grand Prix Baku (2014), thereby opening his tally by scoring 82 Grand Prix points. However, his poor result at the FIDE Grand Prix Tbilisi (2015) destroyed his opportunity to finish in the top 2 of the shortened Grand Prix series. After a strong start in the final leg at FIDE Grand Prix Khanty-Mansiysk (2015), Svidler lost momentum to finish in the middle of the field.

Nevertheless, Svidler qualified by reason of rating to play in the World Cup (2015). He needed to finish in the top 2 to qualify for the Candidates Tournament of 2016 and that is exactly what he achieved: in the early rounds, he defeated Turkish GM Emre Can, Romanian-German GM Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu, Azeri GM Teimour Radjabov and former FIDE World Champion Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov to advance to the quarter final. There he defeated Wei Yi in the second set of rapid tiebreakers to win by 3.5-2.5 and advance to the semi final where he defeated Anish Giri in the standard games 1.5-0.5 to make it into the final against Sergey Karjakin. This qualified him for the next World Cup in 2017 and to participate in the Candidates Tournament in 2016. In the final against Karjakin, Svidler lead in the extended match format by 2-0 before Karjakin hit back with two wins to level the standard time format 2-2, taking the match to tiebreakers. The two continued exchanging blows through the rapid games, tieing each pair of games 1-1 before Karjakin defeated Svidler in the blitz games 2-0. The final result in the final was 4-6 in Karjakin's favor, all ten games having had results (no draws).

Svidler’s first taste of a major team event was during the match between Leningrad and Moscow held in Leningrad in October 1989, when as a 13 year old he substituted to play a game for Leningrad: Leningrad won the match 45-35.

<National team member>: His national representation has been as follows:

He played for Russia in the inaugural China-Russia Summit Match of 2001, which Russia won and again at the Russia - China Match (2008) and at the China - Russia (2015), both of which Russia lost. At the Russia - The Rest of the World (2002) match won by the Rest of the World by 52-48, he won silver playing on board 6. He achieved outstanding results at the World Teams Championship in 1997 where he won team and individual gold on board, the World Teams Championship in 2001 where he won team silver and individual bronze, at the World Team Championship (2005) where he again won team and individual gold this time playing on board 1, and at the World Team Championship of 2011 where he won individual gold on board 1.

In 2004, a match was held in honour of the 75th anniversary of the birth of former World Champion, the late Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian, between Armenia and the Rest of the World; Svidler played for the Rest of the World team which narrowly won by 18.5-17.5, Svidler winning two and drawing four.

<Club>: Svidler has played in every Russian Premier League season from 1995 until 2015 except in 1999, 2004, 2006 and 2007. His team has been Sankt Petersburg except in 1996 and 2005, and he has always played on board 1 or 2. His overall medal count includes 4 team golds, 2 team silver, 6 team bronzes, 3 individual golds, 2 individual silvers and 1 individual bronze. He has also played in every European Club Cup from 1995 until 2014 except for a hiatus in 2004 and 2005, playing for Sankt Petersburg since 2009. His medal tally in the ECC is 3 team golds, 3 team silvers and one team bronze, 2 individual silvers and 1 individual bronze. Svidler has also regularly participated in other club championships, including the Bundesliga, the French, Belgian and Spanish leagues/team championships, and in the Four Nations Chess League (the four nations of the United Kingdom). In 2009 and 2010 he also participated on the Experience Team in the NH Tournament vs the Rising Stars.

Match:

Svidler drew a 6-game match with Vadim Zvjaginsev in St.Petersburg in 1992, and in June 2012 he played the 4-game Cez Trophy: Navara - Svidler (2012) match, winning by 3-1 (+2 =2) to take the CEZ Trophy. The 7th Voronezh International Chess Festival (ALFA-ECO Cup) took place in June 2003, and Svidler beat Konstantin Chernyshov 2.5-1.5 in a 4-game standard match and 3-1 in a rapid match.

Rapid:

Svidler made it to the final four of the Cap D'Agde FRA (2003), but lost to the eventual winner of the event, Anand, in the semi final. In 2004, he made the final and was runner up in the 17th Cuidad de Leon (2004) behind the winner Alexey Shirov. In 2006 he placed second behind Grischuk at the World Blitz Championship (2006) in Rishon Lezion, Israel, with 10½ points out of 15 games and in 2009, he was runner up in the ACP World Rapid Cup (2009), losing in the final to Gelfand.

In 2010, at the Copenhagen Chess Festival and to celebrate Bent Larsen turning 75, Svidler and Nielsen played a 6-game rapid match (the Larsen Rapid) concurrent with the main event, the Politiken Cup. Svidler won 4.5-1.5 (+3 =3). They then played a 20-game blitz match which was divided into two halves: the first 10 games were to be played using the Larsen Opening (1.b3), while the 2nd set of 10 games allowed players’ choice of openings. Svidler won the first half by 7-3 (+6 -2 =2) and drew the second half 5-5 (+3 -3 =4), for an overall victory in the blitz by 12-8.

Svidler won the first edition of the Chess960 Open held in Mainz, Germany in 2003 becoming the Chess960 World Champion by beating Peter Leko in an 8-game match by 4.5-3.5. He successfully defended his title twice, defeating Levon Aronian in 2004 and Zoltan Almasi in 2005, before losing it to Aronian in 2006.

Personal:

Svidler is a fan of cricket; his handle on the Internet Chess Club server is Tendulkar (the name of India’s top cricketer). He is married with two sons. He’s an Honoured Master of Sport in Russia. His musical tastes include Bob Dylan and Tom Waits and his favourite authors are Fyodor Dostoevsky, Martin Amis, Paul Auster, J. D. Salinger, Philip K Dick, Kurt Vonnegut and Neal Stephenson.

Ratings and rankings:

While he was still 18, Svidler appeared in FIDE's top 100 list in January 1995 where he has remained ever since. He was in the top 10 for almost the whole period 2003-2010 and was ranked as high as #4 on several occasions in January 2004 and 2006. In May 2013, Svidler's rating was 2769, his highest rating so far (although he was only world #9). He first crossed the 2700 mark in 1998, and has remained above 2700 continuously since April 2003.

epistle: <SirRuthless: Wesley has a legit chance to surpass Carlsen in this event. Even in the next two rounds if Wes beats Carlsen and then Carlsen loses the following day or Wes wins and Carlsen only draws then Wes will be NUMBER ONE ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET.>

john barleycorn: <SirRuthless: Wesley has a legit chance to surpass Carlsen in this event. Even in the next two rounds if Wes beats Carlsen and then Carlsen loses the following day or Wes wins and Carlsen only draws then Wes will be NUMBER ONE ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET.>

Dionysius1: This might sound carping, but I find Peter hard to listen to these days. He has a long growl between thoughts that gets on my nerves. I think it has increased over the year few years, and I can hear him trying to reduce it - I hope it's not a throat problem!

zborris8: Hi <Dionysius1: fair enough>. It's just that he's been sharing master-level analysis with English-speaking viewers, but is not a native English speaker. Yet you've been relying on his analysis to help you understand high-level tournaments for so long that you've grown annoyed by a peculiar sound he makes as he mentally translates a Russian thought into the right English phrasing for the viewers - so much so, that you've disregarded the benefit of his analysis through all those past performances, and have posted your private annoyance anonymously on a web page that is dedicated to his games collection.

Dionysius1: Have I? Is that what he's doing? Crikey, those are big assumptions.
Particularly about whether I rely on his analysis.

Actually I listen to him because he's got interesting things to say, sometimes not about chess at all. I can't follow most of his analysis - Jan does a great job simplifying a lot of it for the listeners.

And are these pages not for sharing personal reactions as well as chess analysis? And if I'm sharing them in what sense are they private? Personal certainly, with no expectation that others have them, only that they might find them interesting.

ChessHigherCat: So much for Spanish Inquisition and the self-appointed Emily Posts for our posts. I complained about an online analysis by Shakh and Aronian the other day because the former obviously doesn't speak English and I actually couldn't understand what he was saying, although I'm sure his comments were brilliant. They should hire a simultaneous interpreter in such cases.

zborris8: <Dionysius1: "he's got interesting things to say, sometimes not about chess at all"> Then strip it all down - you've been listening to him for a long time and enjoying his commentary, but "these days" you decide to ignore the entire value of that history to share your private observation about some kind of "growl" that no one else has perceived, and post your complaint at a different chess-related website, not Chess24 where Peter, Jan, and their audience, read and respond to comments and questions. (I think that's weird.)

Dionysius1: To slip into playground chat for a minute, I think your analytical fervour for what I've said, and your finding a pretty harmless post "weird", pretty weird in itself. But never mind - that's the end of it for me - see you elsewhere in the threads I expect.
Dion

zborris8: You're contradicting yourself. You pre-characterized your post as "carping" - which is a weird type of criticism ( https://www.merriam-webster.com/dic... ). Plus, you've already admitted that it was weird by offering the phrase <I've seen weirder>, and I bet you have! ;) See you around!

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